


Fortitudo

by maccom



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Headcanon, Introspection, M/M, One Shot, POV Dorian Pavus, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Jaws of Hakkon DLC, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 09:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maccom/pseuds/maccom
Summary: This is it. The conclusion, the finale, the crescendo that’s been building since Kirkwall - it’s too late to turn around, too late for second thoughts, too late to ask for a measure’s rest. Whether or not there will be an encore no one knows, but Dorian really does hope so. The best operas always leave you stamping your feet for more.Introspection to flesh out my own headcanon, re: why Dorian leaves at the end.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 15





	Fortitudo

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write this because:  
1\. There isn’t a “talk to your companions before you kill the big boss” moment in DAI and I wanted a headcanon for why we don’t get that moment.  
2\. My tattoo artist and I had an argument over whether Dorian is worth romancing, since he leaves you at the end. This fic grew out of my (SUPER INVESTED) side of the argument.

This is it. The conclusion, the finale, the crescendo that’s been building since Kirkwall - it’s too late to turn around, too late for second thoughts, too late to ask for a measure’s rest. Whether or not there will be an encore no one knows, but Dorian really does hope so. The best operas always leave you stamping your feet for more.

The Temple of Sacred Ashes waits above them. The re-opened Breach swirls malevolently across the sky, casting a sickly green light upon the valley below. Red lyrium juts out of rock and stone, wall and wood, like fungal growth or frozen flame. There is no escaping it here.

Dorian should be terrified, but he’s filled with angry determination: anger, that this fool magister is _ still _trying to ruin the world, and determination, because if there’s one thing Tevinter mages are good at its killing other Tevinter mages. It helps that he isn’t alone: the rest of the Inquisition walks with him, a gaggle of companions trailing after Lavellan, all lost in their own thoughts as they move ever closer to their final fight.

Dorian’s trying to focus on being grateful. He is alive - after everything! - and he is walking with Lavellan into whatever fate awaits them. He has not been left behind.

Not this time.

His thoughts repeatedly stray back to Haven. He’d watched the landslide bury their base of operations - and their Herald - as emotions too turbulent to pin down ricocheted inside him. He hadn’t expected to care, to grow so attached, to feel that level of pain as Lavellan disappeared beneath the mountain - they’d been _ friends_! Only friends, nothing more!

Though it had been a remarkably long time since Dorian had even had that.

Watching Lavellan appear to perish beneath a mountain of ice and stone, and then watching him sleep in a cot the very next day - bruised and beaten but very much alive - had been an _ experience_. Another man might have called it a moment of faith, but Dorian’s thoughts had been anything but holy.

He should have realized it back in Haven: self-sacrifice is a likely outcome in this venture. He’d been sure to watch for opportunities for Lavellan to do something stupid - there is no need for the elf to become a martyr - as though he’d be able to stop whatever action Lavellan would take. 

Surely _ Dorian’s _ sage counsel would be heeded. Surely the Inquisitor would listen to _ him_.

The Temple of Mythal had opened his eyes to _ that _painful reality. Standing with not-Blackwall, Solas, and Morrigan, watching his idiot elf step into that cursed magic puddle after he’d told him - in obvious, clear-cut language - to let the witch take the risk had made Dorian want to scream. The power in that place had already set his teeth on edge - ancient, knowing, and not at all friendly to the little mage from Tevinter - but being ignored by the one person he thought would listen had been an entirely new and unpleasant experience to top off that adventure.

He knew _ why _Lavellan had done it, but the feeling of helplessness, of being non-instrumental, had been Dorian’s own, personal failing. He’d put his own needs against the world’s, while the Inquisitor had made the hard choice.

And then they’d stumbled into that mess with the Avvar, and Dorian’s heart had taken the worst beating yet.

He shakes his head, tries to pull himself to the present. It’s a ghastly, nightmarish present, but they’re _ trying_, aren’t they? They’re marching towards the temple ruins with only a meagre addition of troops from Cullen and Leliana. The army’s too far south; the nobles have fled; even the bears won’t waltz by to maul a shade or six.

He wishes they’d had more warning. Not to plan - what kind of plan would help with _ this_? - but to talk. There are things he wants to say, not just to Lavellan but to all of them. They are, for lack of a more encompassing word, Dorian’s friends. To march to their likely end without so much as a clap on the back feels wrong - yet when he tried to find the words, all he can think of are Haron, Orinna, and Telana.

Always Telana.

He can still hear the spirit echoing Telana’s last thoughts across ruin and seaweed. He can still remember the moment he realized there were bones at his feet. The dead held little power over him, but realizing _ who _ those bones belonged to - and _ why _they rested alone, unburied - had chilled him.

The last Inquisitor’s lover, Telana is to Dorian what Ameridan is to Lavellan. Poor, ancient Ameridan, locked in a spell of his own making, had failed his final mission. Telana, wounded and alone, had died waiting for him.

He wouldn’t. Not Dorian. Not ever! He is proactive, not passive - he’d not lie down and perish, hoping against reason that Lavellan would succeed on his own. Dorian’s end would be _ glorious_.

But - _ would it_? He’d watched the Inquisitor take risks already. He’d watched the landslide at Haven, watched the Rift at Adamant. He’d watched his fool elf drink ancient elven magic without a single back-up plan in his handsome head. History is against him, no matter what he says he’d do.

He will _ not _be another Telana. He has to keep Lavellan alive.

It’s harder than it sounds, and precedent is not on his side when it comes to heroes. It isn’t just Ameridan and Telana: that abomination, Anders, lost his Hawke. Their own Lelania lost her Warden. Will Dorian be next to join the Hero Heartbreak Club? It’s the most exclusive in Thedas and invites are practically non-existent, but he really doesn’t want to join the list of lovers left behind.

It doesn’t matter that most of their nights are spent camping, that breakfast often waits until after they’ve cleared out the undead, that Dorian spends free afternoons at Skyhold curled on a couch with Lavellan asleep on his shoulder. They are _ partners_. They hold hands in public. They flirt where others can see them. Their companions acknowledge it all without any ire - even Cassandra and Solas are friendly more often than not.

Tevinter was nothing like this. Not for Dorian; certainly not for his parents. Who had the freedom to fall in love?

The lesser families could. The Soporati, or the slaves.

Not for the first time Dorian finds himself wondering how his life would have gone had he been born in the south, but he _ knows _ where this train of thought ends. It wouldn’t matter if he was rich, or poor, or elven, or _ anything _\- Dorian has no illusions about mage life outside of Tevinter. He’d have blown holes in whatever Circle they tried to stick him in, and even Solas can’t make “apostate vagabond” look good. It wouldn’t matter that he’d be free to love whomever he wished: he would merely be swapping cages, and a Pavus does not do well behind bars.

Even now he has to fight against those memories. Even with Corypheus ahead and his friends around him, his parents pull at him.

If they know he’s sleeping with the Inquisitor - the _ Dalish _ Inquisitor, for _ shame _\- they’ve given no sign. The news reached Tevinter months ago, yet Dorian has received no word from either of them. He can only assume they’ve disowned him and are dealing with the fallout.

When Dorian left Tevinter there had been no long-term plan, no return trip. He hadn’t thought much beyond “stop Alexius”, “don’t get killed”, and “play nice with the southerners”, and he’s done all of that - he could put a nice checkmark beside each task if he was the kind of organized person who kept lists. Alexius’s alternate future is a hazy memory, Dorian’s miraculously survived thus far, and he is playing _ very _nice with a specific southerner. He can move onto the next plan, which is - 

What? Keep Lavellan alive? Save Tevinter from itself in his free time? Both are full-time work, and they do not go well together.

Dorian had warned Lavellan that he wants to return to the Imperium. No - _ want _ is not the word. Dorian has everything he wants in the form of a freckled, blond-haired elf who, against all odds, loves him. Dorian doesn’t _ want _ to return to Tevinter: he _ needs _to.

On their last night in the Bay, after they’d killed the dragon and returned to celebrate with Stonebear Hold, Dorian had slipped out and paid one of the Avvar to ferry him to the island. He’d returned to the hut’s shambling remains, stepped gingerly over the ancient belongings and fresh flowers. The spirit’s haunting voice was gone, finally freed, but the bones remained.

It would have been so easy. Dorian knew the incantations. He knew the proper glyphs and wards. He’d done it all before. The old lover and the new could have had a little chat, alone together amongst the flowers and the spray of sea.

He’d left without casting a single spell.

What could she have told him? _ You should’ve stayed in Redcliffe. This will only hurt at the end. Thanks for the gossip but everyone dies alone, Pavus, so stop whining and enjoy what you have_.

Dorian knows what the elves could have been if Telana lived. He knows the price that was paid; he wakes to the face of it every morning. Telana didn’t order the elves to hold back, but she could have been the one person to convince them to aid Orlais.

Just as Dorian could be the one person to save Tevinter.

The Temple of Sacred Ashes is much closer now. Rifts are opening all over the valley, spewing demons into existence, but the Inquisition can’t stop to close them, not with the Breach looming ahead. They’ll send troops to deal with them later.

There _ will be _ a later.

Lavellan stops and their motley crew halts behind him. They’re watching him, expecting a speech or a farewell or _ something_, but he’s opening and closing his marked hand as he stares up at the glowing ruins. Dorian slides between Bull and Sera, passing Cassandra and not-Blackwall to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Inquisitor. Dorian doesn’t say a word, just reaches down to take that glowing hand in his own. The strange magic snaps and sizzles against his palm, closer to an itch than pain.

_ I think you’re very brave. _

How long ago had that been? It feels like years. A different Dorian, a different Skyhold. A different trajectory. How strange that it had meant so much.

Dorian still has things he wishes he’d said. He wishes he’d told Sera how disastrous plaidweave is as a fashion choice. He wishes he’d told not-Blackwall that he hadn’t been the only fool turning a lie into a life. He wishes he’d told his father that he finally knows what it feels like to be loved unconditionally, and it is so much better than any seat in the Magisterium.

He wishes he’d told Lavellan what that meant to him.

_ It’s not easy to abandon tradition and walk your own path. _

Perhaps the Inquisitor already knows.

Standing beside Lavellan, both staring up at the Breach, Dorian isn’t sure “brave” is the word for him. “Brave” is a word for heroes. He’s just a mage from Tevinter - a ridiculously good-looking and clever mage, but - he’s doing his part. He’s the Inquisitor’s lover, with him until the very end.

What happens after, well - that’s a worry for tomorrow. Today he has a world to save. 


End file.
